How to Feed Red Food to a Canary

For some canary varieties, such as the lizard, Norwich and Yorkshire, color feeding can help enhance the red or orange coloring of the bird. These canaries are what's termed red factor canaries, which is a genetic trait that creates red, orange or bronze colored feathers. Since the color is in the feathers, color feeding to enhance the red will only be successful at certain times of the year. Once feathers have grown in, you cannot change their color.

Instructions

    • 1

      Choose which red intensifying food or foods you want to feed your canary. You can add chopped raw or cooked red pepper, carrots and other red and orange foods or products, such as canthaxanthin, to the canary's food. If you are using a color feeding product for canaries, follow the instructions found on the label for how much and how often to feed the product to your bird.

    • 2

      Mix the red enhancing food into your canary's regular soft food mix. Make the mixture about 10 percent red food and 90 percent your canary's normal diet. If you do not feed your canary a soft food mix, mix the red food with smashed boiled eggs, yogurt or baby food.

    • 3

      Feed juvenile birds the red food every day starting at eight weeks of age until they complete their first molt. When all of their adult feathers have come in and they have stopped losing feathers, your birds have completed a molt.

    • 4

      Feed adult canaries red foods every day during molting. Molting typically occurs annually for healthy canaries after the breeding season and can take six to eight weeks, according to Marie Miley-Russell in "The Practical Canary Handbook." You will know when your birds have started molting by the unusually high numbers of feathers found at the bottom of the cage.